‘Visual field’ is the extent of side vision (or peripheral vision) of a person while looking straight ahead. A device used to measure the extent or gaps in the visual field is called a ‘perimeter’. The perimeter testing serves as a screening tool to detect diseases of the eye and the visual pathway that connects the eye to the brain. Testing the visual fields is as important in children as it is in adults as there are several diseases that occur in both age groups affecting the visual fields (e.g. glaucoma, hemianopia). It is also known that many children with multiple disabilities (e.g. cerebral palsy) also have visual field defects.
State-of-the-art perimetric testing requires an individual to be seated with the head and chin firmly placed in the device and to respond to the detection of a moving/flashed light with a button press.
U.S. application Ser. No. 13/959,295 describes imaging method using an eye examining instrument wherein a projecting device projects a beam onto the convex reflector and the beam is reflected by the convex reflector onto the concave screen imaged on the concave screen, different objects of various sizes and shape are imaged on the screen. The subject can operate a push button when he/she sees the image.
This becomes cumbersome for the children to keep clicking the button and in case of infants it is not practical to take readings using said device. Thus what is needed is a novel solution for measuring visual field in infants and children. The pediatric perimeter can be used to determine the outer boundaries of the visual field, more particularly measuring the said visual field.
The invention discloses a pediatric perimeter with a simple interface communicating with software operating on an embedded low-power computer system.